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Saturday, December 10, 2005

Perhaps the only good thing about this prolonged cold, snowy spell is that the ground is perfect for cross-country skiing on the paths around our farm. Yesterday while taking my first slippery jaunt out the orchard path, I found evidence of a murder. But I didn't need those squinty-eyed guys from a TV crime-solving show to pick through clues for me. I was on the case.

Here's what I saw beneath the stand of Virginia pines on the west side of our house, where the lawn meets the edge of the old orchard. Mourning dove feathers and a bit of blood. Something violent definitely happened here. That's when I remembered the hawk....

I'd seen (and photographed badly) a medium-sized hawk first thing in the morning, perched in those same pines, just above the crime scene. I clicked on frame and the bird flew. I initially thought it was a red-shouldered hawk, but after finding the blood and feathers, and looking more closely at my photograph, I'm pretty certain that my bird (and the perpetrator) is a Cooper's hawk.

Detective Zickefoose confirmed my theory. It's too bad for the modo, but hawks have to eat just like doves.

It reminds me of that scene in (my favorite Western) The Outlaw Josey Wales, where, after a gunfight, the young sidekick says "Josey, ain't we a-gonna bury them fellers?" And Josey (Clint Eastwood in his best role ever) spits some chaw juice out and says: "Nope, buzzards gotta eat same as worms."

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About Bill

Bill of the Birds

Bill Thompson III is the editor of Bird Watcher's Digest by day. He's also a keen birder, the author of many books, a dad, a field trip leader, an ecotourism consultant, a guitar player, the host of the "This Birding Life" podcast, a regular speaker/performer on the birding festival circuit, a gentleman farmer, and a fungi to be around. His North American life list is somewhere between 673 and 675. His favorite bird is the red-headed woodpecker. His "spark bird" was a snowy owl. He has watched birds in 25 countries and 44 states. But his favorite place to watch birds is on the 80-acre farm he shares with his wife, artist/writer Julie Zickefoose. Some kind person once called Bill "The Pied Piper of Birding" and he has been trying to live up to that moniker ever since.